WilliamPS

Been remarkably lucky with injuries at the back this season, be crazy to let an experienced back up go. First thing the club would need to do if he left is replace him

Forecast is for rain, so expect a scrappy game where they try and drag it down The ideal scenario would be an early goal and some crowd frustration on their part. Basically give the home crowd nothing and make it a totally forgettable 90mins and I think Newcastle win comfortably

Have to hope Brighton win the cup really, but today ideally we see extra time and penalties to put as many miles in these players legs as possible

Are West Ham favourites for the conference? If they win it and get into the Europa league overall their season will end up a big success

If you’re worried about Villa I imagine you must be shitting it about Brighton!

England had Shaw and Trippier after Chillwell got injured Burn is simply not an England international level footballer. He is effective in the role he’s doing for Newcastle though. His limitations are well known and have been there all season (Man Utd away game for example), just when there’s a defeat it’s re-examined, when it’s a win it’s glossed over. Howe has accepted these weaknesses as part of his team selection as Howe sees the benefits of having Burns strengths as more important. There is no sudden realisation from opponents that a massive CB playing at LB is going to be exposed against pace

Arsenal may well be looking at a DM, for reasons… They are linked with Rice in the Times today - but that might be just because they’re playing each other.

I can see the subs bench winning it. Gordon and Wilson coming on at 60, as I’m not convinced by Joelinton and Murphy on the flanks will have enough. Now there’s options on the bench Howe has started to use them pretty effectively to change matches

Need two CMs that can step into the first team. Going to be unfortunate that Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd will also be looking at the same players. Id be amazed if Liverpool didn’t go in for Maddison.

Leicester need an outsider to change the atmosphere in the dressing room, but they may have left it too late Benitez did a great job at Newcastle- he was comically better than the managers either side of him. It was such a relief to have a professional in charge who sent his team out with a plan and incredibly well drilled after Mclaren and then we saw with Bruce what happens when you take that structure away again. However he’s coming to the end of his career, am not sure how it will work out at Leicester

City are nice to watch tbf. I don’t want City to win, but cannot bring myself to want Arsenal to beat them. all this is why Leicester winning was such a great story

One of the things the boffins have shown over the last couple of years is that the idea that safe mid table teams are easier to play than teams in relegation battles at the end of the season is false. The best gauge of how tough an opponent will be is the league table and the form table. teams scrapping for relegation are near the bottom as they’re crap, whether they’re trying or not

Hope Villa get a thrashing, but expect a v tough game. I hope Villa don’t get Europe as if they hadn’t had gerrard at the start they’d be right in the mix - better they fall short and struggle to bring in players Villa fans dislike of Newcastle shows that despite all their big talk they have a small club mentality.

Ultimately you have to get results against your rivals and that’s very much what spurs and Villa are now.

The bottom 3 won’t make 35 points so wolves just need one win, West Ham and wolves are close to sorted

Great win, great form which is great as it’s clear to get top 4 there’s going to need to be a lot more of them. Think need four points from the next two games

I flip flop - Burn has had a few near misses recently, but these are often to do with Newcastle in position, he hasn’t had that many defensive lapses and the defence as a unit is working.

Bruno and ASM are always limping around - usually it’s a magic sponge job and they’re both ready to go

Tbf Lampard is just caretaker - no chance he will get it full time. The owners probably accept top 4 is gone, and Potter was not going to mastermind beating Madrid over two legs was he? So binning now and starting to plan for next season makes some sense. Lampards job is to improve the mood music, cheer everyone up, then piss off in the summer

West Ham lose at weekend and Moyes will be gone you’d think

Been pretty sloppy on the ball after the second, need a little bit of calm and concentration West Ham have some good players, but they will get frustrated if they don’t score

Knocking spurs out the CL would be v useful for longer term prospects. Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea will always have bags of cash, attract players and be competitive but spurs could struggle. Ultimately if you want Newcastle to sit in the top 6 or 4 consistently it helps if one of the others implodes a bit

I remember when Newcastle went down in 2009 there were so many chances to get out of it, if you’d looked ten games out you would have said they’ll be ok the team is better than the sides around - but the wins never came. Leicester could go down in the same way. I think Everton will be fine under Dyche. Bournemouth I expect to get to about 34 points, and anyone who is below them is down. That would mean Leicester getting either 3 wins or 2 wins and 3 draws from 9 games. They should be fine but I wouldn’t put money on it.

Really hope Forest stay up, for no good reason beyond signing 25 off players was so crazy I hope it comes off

Bringing in a load of ageing players on wild contracts always raises the quality of domestic leagues, that’s why the Chinese league is now the best in the world